10 Movie Sequels Way Better Than They Had Any Right To Be

Ryan Coogler's Creed is one of the best legacy sequels ever made - the closest any of the numerous Rocky follow-ups have come to equalling Sylvester Stallone's formidable Oscar-winning original. That isn't to slight those Rocky sequels (in truth, I don't think there is a single bad Rocky sequel), but in terms of capturing the same lightning as Sly's directorial debut, all while navigating the waters of 40 years of franchise history, Creed is a staggering achievement.

As a critical and box office success - and with the Rocky franchise charting a similar path - it made sense that Creed would itself be sequelised, although not without some anxiety. Creed was the perfect epilogue to Rocky's journey, and any potential follow-up ran the risk of overstaying its welcome, potentially straying into the pitfalls of its predecessors and the emergent nostalgic trends of the 2010s.

These fears were seemingly confirmed when it was revealed that Creed II, directed by Steven Caple Jr., would pit Michael B. Jordan's Adonis Creed against the son of Dolph Lundgren's Ivan Drago, Viktor (played by Florian Munteanu). Even as a fan of Rocky IV (and especially Bill Butler's vibrant cinematography), it seemed as if Creed would be heading to the same cartoonish destination as its progenitor, mining easy drama from the return of the series' biggest supervillain, as opposed to continuing the soulful, meditative approach that made Coogler's film so electric.

These very criticisms were in fact levied against Creed II when it released, but I think they underestimate just how smartly it navigates what, in lesser hands, could have been a schlocky effort. This may come down to how much you believe Dolph Lundgren is one of the most criminally underutilised action stars of all time (and seriously, he is), but it's truly impressive how well Creed II breaks down the character of Drago and gives Lundgren the requisite space to go deeper. "He's not a machine, he's a man!" Tony Burton's Duke says to Rocky in the fourth film's climactic match; in Creed II, we see the man who refuses to accept that, and in doing so, ensures his child inherits his pain.

You can feel Creed II grappling with inevitability at times - the idea that the easiest concept had to happen sooner or later - that Donnie's momentum would always carry him to Drago. However, rather than just shrugging it off, it sits with that idea and rolls it into its story of revenge and healing. It should, on paper, have been a cartoon, but writers Stallone and Juel Taylor cut a delicate and gripping path forward that made for a rich if not underestimated addition to the franchise canon.